THE SEVEN BREAKS IN THE FIRST CYCLENAMELY, THE PERIODS OF GENTILE OPPRESSION. (See Plate 2, Figure 2.)

THOUGH the Lord, in pursuing his own blessed purposes, may allow man to have his way for a time, suffering himself, so to speak, to be turned aside in his path, still he ever keeps his eye steadily fixed on his original object, and will prevail in the end. This principle is clearly developed in connexion with the first of the three cycles before named, as I shall now endeavour to show.

I have given my reasons already for believing that seventy weeks, or 490 years, intervened between Moses and Solomon. The dates given before, in order to prove this position, are as follows, corresponding with those in plate 2, figure 2, on the left side of the diagram.

This agrees, it will be remembered, with what I have said in the foregoing section. And now let us look at the dates in connexion with the same period of time in the books of Judges and Samuel, which, on examination, will be found wholly to differ from the foregoing statement. They are as follows, agreeing with those in plate 2, figure 2, on the right side of the diagram.

From the Exodus to the going forthof the spies to search out the land (see note as to this period).

Carried forward

YEARS.

* 2

Num. x. 11-13, xiii.
17-20; Deut. ii. 14.

* It is clear that this was two years, because we read of the camp moving forward in the second month of the second year, Numbers x. 11. 13., and then in the autumn ("the time of the firstripe grapes," Numbers xiii. 20) of the very same year we find the spies were sent forth. Besides which, in Deuteronomy ii. 14, we find that the interval between the departure of the camp from Kadesh Barnea, from whence the spies had been sent forth, and their entrance into the land, was thirty eight years, which leaves between the exodus and the going forth of the spies, cxactly two years

The 450 years of Acts xiii. 19,20-from the division of the land to the time of

Samuel the prophet.

This period is not exactly named in Scripture, but it must have been twenty years, in order to make up the 450 years of Acts xiii. 19, 20, from the division of the land to the time of Samuel the prophet.

This period is unnamed in Scripture, but it must have been ten years, in order

Thus we find an entire discrepancy between the two above statements: the time hetween.

that the Jewish Rabbis, in order to serve certain ends of their own, struck out the seven periods of bondage in the days of the Judges and Samuel, amounting in all to 141 years, so as to shorten the time, and reduce it from 621 years to merely 480. Their object in thus corrupting the word, it is said, was in order to make it appear that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah. Christ came, as we know, at the very time when the whole Jewish nation expected him, when from the angelic announcement to Daniel they had reason to do so. Could the Jews then,

in after times, have succeeded in showing that the world was not to fill up the period of 480 years in 1 Kings vi. 1., from the Exodus to the foundation of the temple, that is, omitting the seven intervals of servitude. Josephus, it is true, makes it twelve years, but, for the reason here given, I believe it to have been only ten.

* Those who are acquainted with Mr. Cunninghame's work on the Jubilean Chronology, will perceive that I have received considerable assistance from thence in the arrangement of the above table of dates.

so old as it was generally supposed to have been at the time of the coming of Jesus, then the conclusion of necessity was, that the Lord was not come, that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a deceiver, as they wished to make it appear. When this view of the question first came before me, settled as I had previously been as to the question of the threefold period between Moses and Solomon, I own I was startled, seeing that this would have disturbed all my previous conclusions. Painful I felt it would have been to relinquish what I had long believed to be true, what I had felt to be in such beautiful harmony, so according to God, so altogether beyond what my mind, or, I may say, any human mind had power to originate. Still I was willing, I trust, to give it all up as a mere theory, if such, indeed, it should prove to have been; waiting for light, at the same time, on the subject from Him who is the sole fountain of truth, and who has been true in this case to his promise to those who thus wait upon Him to be guided aright in these things. He has, I feel conscious, shown me how the whole thing may be settled without rejecting the number in question as spurious, or in any way changing the word in this place from what we find it at present.

Now then I proceed to explain what I believe to have opened upon me in considering this subject; and in so doing I return to speak of a principle which I have noticed before, namely, the suspension of the reckoning of years on God's part at such times as the Jews were in bondage. This was the case during the years of the Babylonish captivity; so now, in this age of their dispersion and blindness, Israel bears the name of "Loam mi," and hence time as to them is suspended. In a moral sense we may say that time does not exist. And what if the same thing occurred during the period in question? What if, during those times when the sword of the stranger, of the Moabite, the Ammonite, or the Philistine hung over the land, the course of time as to them was suspended? God is ever true to himself, in all ages his ways are the same; and hence I believe arose the discrepancy. Hence, while recording the history merely of Israel, the Spirit of God by the pen of the inspired historian notes the actual period, carefully marking the seven periods of servitude with the exact duration of each. While on the other hand, when his object is different, when he writes in order to show his own purpose of

grace with regard to his people, to mark the period in a dispensational aspect, we find him designedly passing over in silence those periods when Israel's Sabbaths had lapsed for a season, when the land was in bondage, as unworthy of notice in his record of time, and treating the period of servitude as SEVEN BLANKS IN THEIR HISTORY. Thus, if there be a discrepancy here, it is, if I may so speak, a divine, yea, an harmonious discrepancy. And in it we trace not the hand of poor failing man meddling with the letter of Scripture, but of Him who in all ages is true to himself, of Him who has full title to change the times and the seasons as he pleases in a way of his own; and who, in spite of the Jews having lengthened the time by their sin, still leaves us to see that if not in an ACTUAL, at least in a DISPENSATIONAL sense, SEVENTY WEEKS AFTER ALL INTERVENED BETWEEN MOSES AND SOLOMON. These are the Lord's ways, and man has only to stand by and in silent adoration be silent. In tracing these things so far above out of the reach of the natural man, we surely may each of us gladly echo the thought of the Poet

"His purpose and His course he keeps,

Treads all my reasonings down,
Commands me out of nature's deeps,

And bides me in his own."

THE LENGTH OF THE

BABYLONISH

CAPTIVITY,

DURING THE SECOND CYCLE, ACCOUNTED FOR.

I Now ask my reader to look at Plate 2, Figure 1, and also at Figure 5, in connexion with it. My object here then is to show that in the Babylonish captivity, which breaks in on the course of the second cyclical period, namely, the one between Solomon and Nehemiah, the Lord had an eye to the sin of his people in polluting his Sabbaths; and that in fixing the time of their chastisement, he did so on the strict ground of retributive justice. And in endeavouring to do so, I turn to glance for a little at what we have considered before, namely, the first of our cycles-that between Moses and Solomon.

The whole course of this period, as we already have seen, was the witness of man's degradation and shame, seeing that neither